Sharia law in America? Farfetched, and yet ...

Is there a danger that Islamic law may become part of legal rulings in some parts of America? That idea seems so farfetched as to be way beyond possible. And yet …

Just last week, a judge set aside the results of a referendum in which Oklahoma voters forbade state judges from considering “sharia law” when deciding a case. A hearing on the temporary injunction is set for Monday.

And last year, a judge in New Jersey declined to issue a restraining order requested by a woman whose estranged husband had forced sex upon her. The man, of Moroccan origin, claimed Islamic law permitted him to do so. (A second judge overruled the first judge.)

Outside the U.S., in Western Europe, sharia law has reportedly become “de facto” the law in some areas with large Muslim populations in parts of France and the United Kingdom.

Should we be worried?

Perhaps not yet. Unfortunately, however, what these cases may illustrate is how the best in the American legal system – as well as some problematic cultural trends -- can possibly be used to undermine that very system.

In the Oklahoma matter, the director of that state’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed suit two days after a statewide referendum (held during the mid-term elections) passed with 70 percent voter approval.

Muneer Awad bypassed sharia law and went straight to U.S. legal principles to try to make his case. His suit claims the referendum violates both constitutional protections of the free exercise of religion and constitutional prohibitions against the establishment of religion.

Awad’s claim, common sense tells us, is absurd. By definition, Islamic law is religious. And U.S. constitutional principles explicitly reject applying a sectarian religious principle (and a foreign one, at that) to American law.

(And by the way, do we really want to apply Islamic law here? This week, in Iran, a woman pronounced guilty of adultery was awaiting punishment by stoning.)

Nevertheless, the activist in Oklahoma found a single sympathetic judge, and the will of a large majority was set aside, at least temporarily. And that has some people concerned.

In America – perhaps only, so far -- the matter may be mostly symbolic. Until now, no state judge has attempted to incorporate Islamic legal principles in any ruling, as far as we know. For all we know, the Muslim activist may be acting merely out of a sense of wounded ethnic or religious pride.

(Awad did assert that the result of the referendum somehow made Islam appear diminished in the public eye. And that’s another problem with how some judges do things – they sometimes abandon sound legal principles because somebody’s feelings have gotten hurt.)

But from the voters’ perspective, the referendum, and their approval of it, also has symbolic value. It declares that U.S. constitutional principles apply here. Islamic law does not. Nor, for that matter, should legal thinking dreamed up at the United Nations influence judges.

That might seem a no-brainer, except that voters (rightly) perceive that some judges have forsaken a strict adherence to the federal and state constitutions in favor of their own, personal, opinion of what the law should be.

Who is to say that a judge “sympathetic” to Islam might not bring Islamic legal principles to bear in a future ruling? The Oklahoma referendum is designed to prevent just such twisting of American constitutional principles.

How? In this way. Our legal system is mostly secular, in that the government is forbidden to establish any state-sponsored religion. However, our legal system is not entirely secular, in that our legal system, like our nation itself, is founded on Judeo-Christian principles. If the system were entirely secular, the law would become merely the enforcement tool of a ruling class.

For example, the very idea that liberty is a God-given right, rather than something granted by rulers, is a Judeo-Christian principle. Limits on the government’s power to restrict liberty is based on that that principle. (Compare our laws with the lack of limits to the government’s power in nations without a Judeo-Christian foundation, such as Iran or the Soviet Union.)

Likewise, the idea that punishment cannot be cruel and unusual is a Judeo-Christian concept. It is very different than the Islamic ideal of “justice,” which calls for cutting off the hands of thieves.

In recent years, however, America has become increasingly “multi-cultural,” both because of a large influx of immigrants and the teaching of a “revisionist” version of the nation’s early history.

Multi-culturalism is more than just respect for many cultures. In its current sense, it teaches that the Judeo-Christian tradition is no better than any other. That misguided idea that “all cultures are equal” has been aggressively taught in our society, in the classroom and in the media. As a result, many people have forgotten (or discarded) the foundation upon which this nation was built.

But some citizens become judges. So what happens when a judge, educated as a multi-culturalist and sympathetic to Islam, declares that Islamic legal principles are just as valid as Judeo-Christian ones? Do we really want a judge to decide to model any part of his legal reasoning on what we find in Iran?

That’s why the Oklahoma referendum, as passed, is a good thing. It strikes a blow, symbolically and more, for U.S. “exceptionalism” – the idea that America, because of its founding, is different than the rest of the world. Our legal system is not just the best of what the rest of the world thinks makes good law.

Oklahoma voters have shown that they understand that American “exceptionalism” is worth underlining. Maybe that is what’s bothering our Muslim activist.

But the defensiveness of some of the referendum’s defenders also says something. “We’re not trying to send any sort of message here,” state Sen. Anthony Sykes, a co-sponsor of the Save Our State Amendment, told The Wall Street Journal.

I think what he meant was that supporting the measure does not make one anti-Islamic. But not being anti-Islamic does not mean that we should not insist that American legal principles – not foreign ones – apply here.